Keyrings are one of those branded merchandise options that have been around for what seems like an eternity. Tried and tested. A proven vehicle for marketing success. In today’s blog post I cover what personalised keyrings are, describe the benefits you gain by using them, explain how to create one and share unique keyring ideas.
With personalised keyrings I refer to all those keyrings you won’t find in a catalogue. I mean those thick promotional product catalogues you’re probably receiving on a regular basis. Keyrings are always one of the product categories that show up in there.
A personalised model is different. Some people refer to them as custom or, in Britain, they call them bespoke keyrings. They are unique, in the sense that nobody else is using the exact same model. They might even go beyond that, containing e.g. the name or the person that is receiving it.
There are many reasons why your business will benefit from personalised keyrings. Here are five of them.
Keyrings are neat, small items that help promote your brand. They get the word out there. Brand visibility assured. Without ongoing costs. Keyrings not only reinforce the brand towards the user but towards other people who are next to them whilst the product is being used, lying on a desk or hanging from a hook on a wall. Attached to car keys, house keys, or bags.
Keyrings, as an everyday object of functional value, engage customers. They use the product with their hands. They grab it. They turn a key whilst holding and seeing it. They are often exposed to the product and therefore the brand. Much more often than a billboard they might, from time to time or maybe even just once, have driven by. Or a digital ad that shows up in their browser. Only for a few seconds.
Personalised keyrings are not cheap but very cost-effective. Especially when produced in bulk. They don’t break the bank whilst providing constant brand messaging. They are much more memorable than other types of promotional materials, like flyers or business cards. Keyrings of a high quality will last for years and not be thrown away. For all the talk about how keys will be replaced by mobile phone apps or access cards, we’re not there yet. The truth is there are still a lot of them being used. They are everywhere
Personalised keyrings, particularly those with a customer’s name or initials, create an emotional connection between the business and the recipient. This makes the recipient feel special and valued.
A personalised keyring feels more meaningful than a standard product, fostering a sense of customer care and building brand affinity. They are often used at events, e.g. as part of the welcome package, and can thus serve as conversation starter. As portable objects, they turn users into moving brand ambassadors. Wherever the keyring goes, it can spark conversations about the business and connect to new potential customers.
When creating personalised keyrings for promoting your brand, design versatility is a key advantage. Keyrings are suitable for matching a brand’s unique character and appeal to a specific target audience. They can be cut or cast into almost any form. Be it flat, debossed, embossed, or in full 3D. For limited editions or mass quantities.
There are numerous color options and ways to personalise them, e.g. via names or initials, custom messages such as a motivational quote or a special date, or even custom images. Additionally, a capable manufacturer will have a multitude of print techniques and finishes available, e.g. laser engraving, hotstamping and printing.
The versatility of keyrings can turn into a challenge. There are so many options to choose from. What does a proven process look like when planning to source a personalised keyring? What aspects does one need to consider?
Keyrings will be different depending on the goal and the occasion you need them for. Is it for direct sales or for branding? Are you planning to use them for a direct mailing campaign, as an onpack gift item or as a giveaway at events? The shape might be different when you distribute them via an envelope, attach them to a bottle, or hand them over manually.
Does the personalised keyring need to match a particular seasonal or event based theme? Christmas, a company anniversary or a product launch? Keyrings will serve as a small souvenir to commemorate the event.
Once you and your supplier are clear about the goal and the occasion, the next step is to determine the design. You’ll want to rely on a professional designer for this, since they’ll know how to create a model that will be most cost-effective. You should rely on a full color, 3D render visualisation and provide feedback. Later on a prototype and a pre-production sample. Before any bulk production related processes start.
Personalised keyrings can be made from a wide range of materials, each of which offers a different visual appeal, tactile experience and price point. Metal is durable and premium, plastic lightweight and affordable, leather elegant and luxurious, acrylic highly customisable and lightweight, wood eco-friendly and warm. Even more sustainable options are recycled plastic or metal, bamboo, or biodegradable materials. Whichever materials you consider, they need to fit your brand’s identity and your target audience’s preferences.
Keyrings don’t only need to be keyrings. Additional elements can enhance the product. Examples are:
Multi-functional keyrings increase the level of functionality the keyring offers. This increases the frequency with which the recipient uses the product.
There are so many options when it comes to creating unique personalised keyrings. Here are a few our PES team brought to life.
Personalised keyrings are a small but capable tool for promoting your business. They offer a unique combination of functionality, cost-efficacy and brand visibility. From a design perspective, they can easily be adapted to represent your unique brand and match your target audience’s preferences. Keyrings provide your stakeholders with an easy to carry and memorable product. Used as giveaways or corporate gifts, they foster customer relationships and improve brand loyalty. Personalised keyrings are a safe and pragmatic choice when it comes to choosing promotional merchandise.
Ivica Baraba
"In PES I get to work on many custom branded merchandise projects. I’ve been doing this since 2004. It intrigues me to delve into brand worlds and determine what products can help a client achieve their business goals. It is an exceptionally creative and dynamic industry to be a part of.”
There exist many occasions for which you’ll want to consider investing into personalized trophies. In this blog post I describe five such occasions.
Additionally, I’ll explain what personalized trophies are, your benefits when giving them out and how to best personalize them.
Personalized trophies and awards are custom made objects via which one honors specific individuals, teams or organizations. They are different from standard trophies and awards because the design is not generic and mass produced but personalized.
Personalization can mean different things. The trophy and award can carry a recipient’s name and title. The name of an event. Custom branding elements like a logo. A category which the award is linked to, e.g. Sales. The trophy and award can even be made using custom materials.
Personalized trophies and awards elevate the occasion and grant benefits to all parties involved.
Elevate the event: Personalized awards elevate the event. Participants are more likely to perceive the organisation, brand or individual that are handing out personalized awards to be professional and serious about quality.
Present values: Giving out personalized trophies and awards helps establish a culture of recognition. Awarding an individual’s or team’s achievement shows that the awarder values and is willing to celebrate the work they have put in.
Communicate the brand: Trophies that carry a company logo, its colors or unique copy help communicate the brand. Not only towards the participants of the event itself. To other stakeholders, like suppliers, consumers and clients, too. Via images and videos that are being shared after the event.
Increase motivation: People who receive an award with their name on it, feel personally recognized. This can help them to keep on giving their best and push their limits. Their hard work is being validated and an award serves them as a physical reminder of their achievement.
Foster relationships: Personalized trophies and awards show that the giver notices and values the recipient’s achievements. This alone can help foster relationships, e.g. between an employer and employees. Team members who know their achievements are seen and recognized are more likely to be loyal towards the organization. Other employees might look up to the person who has won an award as a role model. Thus elevating the recipient’s status amongst his peers.
Create competition: Personalized trophies and awards can serve as a vehicle for people to improve their game. Be it in sports or other organisations. Some people will feel inspired to reach new heights. This hopefully fosters a healthy type of competition.
Personalized trophies and awards are a powerful tool to recognise someone’s extraordinary achievements. This has a positive impact in a multitude of areas.
There exist many occasions that are suitable for giving out personalized trophies. Here are five of them.
Anniversaries are special dates that commemorate the occurrence of a meaningful event in the past. These occur annually, communicating the passage of time. An anniversary at which personalized trophies might be used are a celebratory event about the foundation of the organization or the launch of a significant product.
Brand celebrations are events organised by an organisation to recognise certain milestones, successes, or special moments referring to the brand. They serve to position the brand in a positive light, strengthen team dynamics and/or customer relationships. As such anniversaries are always brand celebrations, too. Other brand celebrations are rebranding initiatives, product relaunches and customer milestones.
Besides anniversaries and brand celebrations there are many other events at which you’ll want to consider handing out personalized trophies and awards. These are often focused on one particular group of people, be it a company’s own employees, their suppliers or their customers. Recognising significant achievements of any of these groups with personalized trophies will elevate the experience.
Events could be related to holiday celebrations, e.g. a Halloween party at which end the participants dressed in the most creative costumes win trophies. Another possibility are charity events, celebrating positive work and achievements the broader community benefits from.
As a student, back in 1999/2000, right during the millenium change, I worked at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Cancun, Mexico. The hotel was one of roughly fifty Ritz-Carlton hotels in the world. One of the many things I do remember is that competition was an integral part of the organisational culture. Each month the quality department was putting up lists with certain numbers to a pin board, next to the entrance of the employee cafeteria.
The numbers referred to 15 different categories which each single hotel of the Ritz-Carlton network had in common. The categories were guest satisfaction measurements relating to aspects like reservation, valet parking, check-in, cleanliness, room service, billing, overall value for price…
This way each hotel team could continuously see how they were performing. In comparison to all other hotels. The best ones would earn awards.
The Ritz-Carlton managed another type of competition which was more focused on the individual hotel. All employees had to always carry small sheets of paper and a pen with them. Whenever you’d find out a guest’s preference, e.g. a particular type of beverage they liked, you’d write it down and throw it into a mailbox. A team of three people who formed the guest satisfaction team would then input these preferences into a database. Whoever collected the most preferences was the winner of the competition and got an award.
There are many other competitions organisations come up with: sales results, cost reductions, profitability, number of new clients. It depends on the organisational culture, but the more they are able to gamify them, the more fun and successful they tend to be.
Organisations set goals and when they achieve them, it is time to celebrate. There exist a lot of achievements that warrant a personalized award:
- a project completion
- a brand’s entry into a new market
- the one millionth customer
- sales milestones
- new product or service development (think about a personalized award in the shape of a light bulb here #innovation #idea)
- recognition of long-term employees who are part of the company for 5, 10, 25, or more years
- living company values
- leadership or customer service excellence
- the best team
- top individual performer
- sustainability achievements
- retirement
- community impact
Whatever it is, personalized trophies and awards can help elevate the occasion. By honoring the recipients and reinforcing company values related to recogntion and excellence.
To personalize a trophy means to customize it to the specific occasion. The most important aspects to take into consideration are the brand behind it, the theme of the occasion and the individuals involved. Depending on the circumstances, there can be other aspects such as “How visible is the trophy on images or videos?” or “How easily can it be transported?” or “What packaging is needed”? that one needs to consider.
The type of personalisation will depend on the brief. Budget plays a major role here. If it is low, materials such as acrylic glass are a good option whilst a more premium material such as metal most likely won’t be doable. Especially for low volumes, the right manufacturing technologies need to be chosen in order to avoid high set up costs. This could mean laser cutting acrylic glass instead of producing a 3D plastic object via injection moulding. Trophies can be made from many different materials: metal, glass, crystal, wood, acrylic, resin, MDF, marble, leather…
Fully custom trophies and awards have a unique shape whilst personalized ones can mean a standard product which is then e.g. engraved with the name and date of the event + the name of the recipient. These are two very different options, since fully custom trophies will first require the development of a concept.
Personalized trophies will reflect a brand’s style, in terms of logo, artwork and colors. If the event has a unique theme the trophy might reflect that, too. For example a trophy for the national champion of a tennis tournament could be made by combining aspects of the country and the sport.
Some trophies can include lighting or moving parts to highlight certain elements. By personalizing a trophy one creates a unique and more meaningful type of award. One that, amongst other awards standing next to it on a shelf, will for sure stand out.
There exist many occasions during which the use of personalized trophies and awards make sense. Choosing the right type of trophies, the ones which match a brand’s, an event’s and a target audience’s unique character, will elevate the experience the most.
In the next blog post I’ll be presenting custom trophy ideas. These will hopefully inspire you to come up with your own ideas for personalized trophies and awards.
Ivica Baraba
"In PES I get to work on many custom trophy projects. I’ve been doing this since 2004. It intrigues me to delve into brand worlds and determine what products can help a client achieve their business goals. It is an exceptionally creative and dynamic industry to be a part of.”
Coaster holders are mostly smaller type of objects designed to store and organize drink coasters when they are not being used. They can be made from many different materials and come in various designs. To fit a particular brand or interior.
Coaster holders help keep coasters stacked, protected and easy to grab. Placed on tables, within bars, cafes and restaurants, they represent an excellent opportunity for communicating to consumers.
Within the domains of design and material, there exist all kinds of coaster holders. Let me first introduce you to the most common materials before showing you some of the most inspiring coaster design ideas.
Plastics is by far the most commonly used material for making coaster holders. It is a material that can be molded, extruded, or cast into many different shapes. It has a high durability, is lightweight and cost-effective.
Sustainable plastics, e.g. bioplastic, recycled plastics and biodegradable plastics, reduce environmental damage, and hence offer valuable alternatives to traditional types of plastics.
If you manage a premium brand, you’ll probably want to choose a premium material for your coaster holder. Wood is a good option for this. With wood like oak, alder or walnut, you can achieve a rustic, classic look. There exist wood types with which you can achieve a modern look, too. It always depends on the finish and the overall design.
Another premium material option is metal. Metal coaster holders are very durable and offer the option of a vintage or a more modern style. Most often metal is used for contemporary designs. Metals that come to mind are stainless steel, aluminum, iron and brass.
Ceramic refers to different types of material made from inorganic, non-metallic substances. This means mostly clay. Treating the material at high temperatures is key here.
There exist many other materials which are, for various reasons, rarely used for making coaster holders.
Glass: can be clear or colored. Due to the high fragility, glass coaster holders are not very common.
Leather: leather offers a unique tactile sensation and links with premium or luxury brands.
Stone or marble: this material is durable but quite heavy.
Fabric: felt, cotton or some other woven material. These materials are soft and flexible. They offer a cozy type of décor.
A short definition of “eye-catching”: you can’t help but notice.
What makes consumers notice a coaster holder? A unique design. If a coaster holder has a unique visual appeal, e.g. via its shape, color, texture or graphics applied to it, there is a good chance consumers will pay attention making them a great use in POS.
Same as menu holders, coaster holders are placed in the center of tables. As such they are very likely to be seen. Exceptional craftsmanship increases the probability. This could mean special patterns, hand-painted details or intricate engravings.
Innovation regarding the functionality of the product. A holder that creatively presents or organizes coasters will increase consumer curiosity.
The interior design of the place, e.g. a bar, the coaster holder is part of, matters. If the holder matches the décor, be it contemporary, minimal or steampunk, that will be quite unusual.
Because most coaster holders are mass market type of items. As such, they aren’t able to adapt well to the surroundings. This means they don’t add much value to the décor.
Coaster holders offer a lot of room for playfulness. You can choose from many different options. Especially when you develop your own unique concept by working with a product designer.
Here are fiveideas to guide you.
The power of a brand story lies in its potential to create emotional connections with consumers. It has the power to differentiate your brand and inspire consumers to become loyal. Storytelling makes your brand more relatable and memorable. More human.
You can use this for any branded merchandise product. For coaster holders you might use different geometric shapes and create a story around that. You might use different prints or colors, too.
You might create a story around universal symbols, integrating them into your coaster holder design. What’s important is that it makes sense with your specific brand and is relevant to your target audience.
Thematic design means you create a unified visual and conceptual experience by focusing on a specific theme. There are a lot of options for this. Your brand might already revolve around a specific theme:
- Seafaring
- Art Deco
- Japanese Zen
- Nature
- Cinematography
The theme serves as a focal point around which all design elements revolve and therefore reinforce the chosen concept. The theme you choose will have a direct impact on your coaster holder design: colors, patterns and materials.
When using coaster holders that align to a particular theme, it is important to consider the décor of the outlets you plan on using them. If an outlet is decorated in a steampunk design, art deco designed coaster holders won’t work well.
Therefore it can be counterproductive to thematically overload a coaster holder. The product needs to be designed in a careful way.
A unique approach when it comes to designing a coaster holder is to choose a minimalist version. This means a simple design that focuses on clean lines, none to little embellishment, often monochrome or bicolor and efficient use of space. The shape is often geometric, e.g. circular, rectangular or squared. The look is elegant and understated. There are no bold decorations or details that stick too much out.
A minimalist coaster holder will only present essential design elements whilst still offering an aesthetic appeal. It’s an object that intentionally understates. It appears clean to the eye. The following saying is rightfully associated with minimalist design: “less is more”.
All design aspects considered, functionality is key. Your design choices should always support it. Not compete with it. Consumers are not the only ones who will judge your brand based on the level of practicality your coaster holder offers. Your B2B partners will, too. With this I am referring to the outlets you work with. Their people will judge your products to a very high degree by how well it gets the job done.
With so many promotional messages out there, it is challenging to stand out. In the realm of coaster holders, eye-catching design is essential. A high level of practicality is a given. Great design is what will draw attention and add personality to your product.
There are a many options to achieve this:
a) a set of geometric shapes which might even be multi-levelled. Imagine a coaster holder that stacks coasters in a geometric arrangement.
b) a coaster holder could incorporate electronics: illumination, glow-in-the-dark, sound…
c) themes or novelty aspects
d) artistic and sculptural: imagine a coaster holder that, along with the coasters, looks like a piece of art or an art installation
e) bright and bold colors or gradient effects, which means the colors transition from one to another
f) innovative materials offer an opportunity to achieve an eye-catching product solution. Imagine a drink that is based on elderflower. Its coaster holder could be made from resin with elderflowers embedded in it.
g) coaster holders could incorporate some type of interactive element, e.g. a a rotating mechanism or a board game, something that can be playful
h) depending on the outlet coaster holders can be personalized, e.g. via its color, a print or an engraving
i) magnets can be used to keep the coasters attached in an unusual wayj) vintage or retro designs can be used, e.g. by using patinated metal, to evoke a sense of
j) vintage or retro designs can be used, e.g. by using patinated metal, to evoke a sense of nostalgia
Coaster holders are a cost-effective promotional item for positioning your brand and increasing sales. At events and in on-trade outlets.
There exist a ton of options when it comes to designing your product. Counting on professional help regarding the design, the development and the production is key.
You wonder if besides coaster holders we produce coasters, too? Thanks for asking. We do. But only the custom and premium type. Not made from cardboard but from metal, wood, plastic, leather, marble….
Ivica Baraba
"In PES I get to work on many custom Point of Sales material projects. I’ve been doing this since 2004. It intrigues me to delve into brand worlds and determine what products can help a client achieve their business goals. It is an exceptionally creative and dynamic industry to be a part of.”